Zim dollar coming back – VP Chiwenga

Vice President Constantino Chiwenga says the Zimbabwe dollar will be reintroduced at an “appropriate time”, after the government has fixed the country’s ailing economy.

According to the state-owned Herald newspaper, Chiwenga told Zanu-PF supporters at a rally in Shurugwi this week that the government needed to sort out the country’s economy by “reopening industries” first.

The Zimbabwean dollar collapsed between 2008 and 2009 due to hyperinflation, thus, forcing the country to adopt a basket of foreign currencies that included the South African rand, the United States dollar, the British pound and the Euro.

Chiwenga’s remarks came a few days after President Emmerson Mnangagwa made similar remarks.

Mnangagwa reportedly “hinted on plans to reintroduce” the dreaded Zimbabwean dollar in order to address the current issue of cash shortages in the southern African country.

According to NewsDay Mnangagwa said that the country was in need of its own currency.

Diamond and gold reserves

This was not the first time that Mnangagwa made such comments.

In July 2017, Mnangagwa, then vice president, was quoted by the Herald newspaper as saying that government was “building diamond and gold reserves to back the local currency upon its re-introduction in future”.

Mnangagwa, however, refused at the time to disclose when the local currency would be re-introduced, but said it would only come back when mineral reserves reached desired levels.

“We are building reserves of gold and diamonds which if they reach a certain level I will not tell you here, it will then allow us to introduce our own currency that will be backed by those minerals. I am not at liberty to disclose to you the level that we want those minerals to reach before they can back our own currency,” Mnangagwa was quoted as saying.

For two years now Zimbabwe’s worsening cash shortages have caused misery for locals trying to withdraw their money from banks.

Cash has remained on high demand, especially for things like bus fares.